Henry got up early and went on a hike up one of the
hills in Hal's neighborhood. His walk to get there led
him past the Seoul Arts Center (예술의 전당), which contains a museum
and performance space. The museum was pretty
top-drawer, he said, at least judging from the outside
and the exhibitions advertised: they are showing a
selection of Egyptian items from the British Museum and people were waiting in line for the ticket office
to open.

There's also a temple in this area, as well as great views of Seoul. I found this blog post which details a more recent walk around here, and was glad to learn the names of the temple and the mountain itself. How neat is it to have such a great area right in your back yard, practically?

lanterns at
Daeseongsa Temple

decorative details at Daeseongsa Temple

view from
Mt. Umyeon (우면산)

flowers in kimchi pots near the temple

The rest of us slept in but got up in time to follow
the Spurs game on the internet while watching a movie
on TV. Are those Spurs looking awesome now or what!?!!

After the game we set out for an afternoon's
excursions, to culminate in a soccer game in the
evening. Our first stop was an absolutely HUGE fish
(or, as they say here, "marine products") market. We
didn't get to buy anything but just to see it. It is
at least as big as the Mexican market in downtown San Antonio,
and FULL of the most amazing-looking marine products
you can imagine! It's like going to an aquarium,
combined with a fish hobbyist's store, combined with a
street market. They had the most enormous shrimp we'd
ever seen (Henry was VERY upset that he couldn't get
some and take them home to grill) a lot of octopus and
squid, and lots more items we couldn't identify. Our
tender vegetarian (Sally) didn't enjoy the visit very
much, and I admit there were some displays that I
found rather upsetting, and the smell eventually was
just too much. But it was a truly unique experience.

Then back on the subway to go to the World Cup Soccer
Stadium (월드컵 경기장) and its adjacent park. After getting our
tickets [you can see images of the ticket stubs below] we needed lunch/dinner and went into the mall
which has been built up on the first level of the
stadium (they really know how to re-use the spaces
built for their big events here; this space, as well
as the Olympic Park, were being very heavily used by
today's Seoul citizens; in other words, no
mostly-empty Alamodomes for them!). This mall has a
food court, but it's both similar and quite different
from ours at home. There were lots of little
restaurants serving all kinds of food, but one central
menu and pay station. You pick your meal by number
(many of them are displayed in pictures so foreigners
will know (sort of) what they're ordering) and pay for
it and are given another number.

Then there are big lighted boards for each restaurant
and you just watch yours for your number to come up
and then go get your food. So well organized! The food
was good and very inexpensive (Henry got an enormous plate
of sushi for under $10 and all of our dishes came with
soup and kimchi (of course!) even though these items
weren't pictured. Hal and Carey had never been to one
of these establishments before, so we all had the
pleasure of a new experience.

We still had plenty of time before the game and went
out into the park to relax, read and throw Hal's
frisbee. Since it was a pleasant Sunday afternoon, the
park was full of relaxing Koreans. Sort of like
Brackenridge Park on Sunday, but with no vehicles.
Lots of inline skaters, badminton players, more
adorable kids, some groups in similar clothes that
were probably church or school groups—in short, a
similar but still quite different experience. Several
folks were intrigued by the frisbee and joined in the
tossing.

Towards game time we packed up and headed back to the
stadium (which is a quite impressive structure that
Hal says can hold 64,000 fans). There weren't that
many there last night to see home team FC Seoul (FC 서울) play
Daejeon (대전), but our estimates ranged from 10-20,000 and
they were very enthusiastic. There was a lot of
singing, club-flag-waving, cheering, and even
fireworks and flares. It looked like a miniature
version of a European or Latin American crowd.

The game was very entertaining and we were impressed
with the level of play. Lots of cute players, too (and
our seats were very good and close to the field). The
home team went behind 2-0 early but ended up tying 2-2
and after Daejeon looked much superior early on it
ended up being a pretty even match. There was very
little English spoken on the PA so we felt like it was
a quite authentic modern Korean experience. [Text concluded below]

teams and mascots during the national anthem before the game

fans enjoying the game

Our agenda the next two days is fairly limited. We only have one
excursion planned for tomorrow and will spend the rest of the time
packing and getting ready for our LONG flight home. And of course we'll have our last Korean
dinner tomorrow night.